II
The platform for ethical progress laid down in the Sermon on the Mount is a great platform. When Tolstoi first realized the social significance of these simple sentences, it acted as a revelation which changed his life. Even men who reject the supernatural claims of Christianity uncover before the Sermon on the Mount. Yet its fate is tragic. It has not been “damned with faint praise,” but made ineffective by universal praise. Its commandments are lifted so high that nobody feels under obligations to act on them. Only small sections [pg 090] of the Christian Church have taken the sayings on oaths, non-resistance, and love of enemies to mean what they say and to be obligatory. Yet all feel that the line of ethical and social advance must lie in the direction traced by Jesus, and if society could only climb out of the present pit of predatory selfishness and meanness to that level, it would be heaven.
Do you and I believe in it? Do we believe that it is not enough to keep out of the spiritual hell and damnation of adultery, but that a clean mind would be the most efficient and cheerful mind? Do we believe that a man who forgives and keeps sweet is happier and safer than a man who always resents things and stirs the witches' caldron of hate in his soul? If a man loved his enemy and turned the other cheek, would he be everybody's door-mat or everybody's temple of refuge?
Suppose we mark for the present those parts which we are willing to accept as our own standards of action. If there are portions which do not seem practicable, let us post them in our minds as debatable propositions, as points to be tested by the experience of coming years, or as working hypotheses in the science of living.
But whatever we may think of single points, let us stick to the leading thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of God, that is, toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards accepted by society. This is a principle of social progress which every leading intellect ought to know by heart.
III
When Jesus offered his six sample cases of ethical progress, he had no intention of exhausting the principle of advance which he laid down. There was more to say about the Jewish law. It is now for his followers to treat the inherited ethical conceptions of traditional Christianity with the same combination of reverence and courage with which he treated the Jewish law.
From the beginning Christianity taught self-control and the mastery of the spirit over physical desires. It always condemned drunkenness. But ancient Christianity never demanded abstinence from fermented drink. With modern methods of manufacturing alcoholic drinks and modern capitalistic methods of pushing their sale, the danger has become more pressing. With modern scientific knowledge the physiological and social problems of drink have become clearer. Modern life demands an undrugged nervous system for quick and steady reactions. It was said of old time, “Thou shalt not get drunk”; but today the spirit of Christianity and modern life says, “Thou shalt not drink nor sell intoxicants at all.”
In every case in which the interests of woman came before Jesus, he took her side. At that time woman was the suppressed half of humanity. The attitude of historic Christianity has been a mixture between his spirit and the spirit of the patriarchal family. Today Christianity is plainly prolonging the line of respect and spiritual valuation to the point of equality between men and women—and beyond.
From the beginning an emancipating force resided in Christianity which was bound to register its effects in political life. But in an age of despotism it might have to confine its political morality to the duty of patient submission, and content itself with offering little sanctuaries of freedom to the oppressed in the Christian fraternities. Today, in the age of democracy, it has become immoral to endure private ownership of government. It is no longer a sufficient righteousness to live a good life in private. Christianity needs an ethic of public life.